"People will spend hundreds and thousands of pounds for this religion of theirs, traveling to other parts of the world in support of their team… showing affection, supporting and caring about… They will jump down the throats of those who so much as even dare to criticize their god rising to defend it at all costs."

You'd think they'd love the World Cup, considering how badly the U.S. normally does in it.posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:18 PM on July 3, 2006

it's hard to deny that, in the fundamentalist's pov, the obsessive soccer fan is worshiping a golden calf of sorts. all that time could have been spent praying -- the Taliban were famously sucky at sports, they were too busy praying. also, how can you respect ramadan if you're an athlete? remember Olajuwon's dietary troubles?posted by matteo at 1:38 PM on July 3, 2006

Well, the Taliban did stage some impressive mass executions in the Kabul soccer stadium.posted by bardic at 1:47 PM on July 3, 2006

"If only they can hold the peace for one month and allow us to watch football," Hassan Omar, a teenager in Jowhar told AFP

He was quickly gang raped, stoned to death and then set on fire to ensure the word of god was still all powerful in the face of his free thinking.posted by 517 at 1:55 PM on July 3, 2006

I know for a fact that some local politicians in the Netherlands stimulated the orange decoration mania to stimulate some sense of unity around a common goal (sic) and common symbols.

So if the islamists are against that maybe that's an indication that football would unify us. Hooray for islamists for showing us the way. More orange lederhosen and orange wigs here please.posted by jouke at 1:57 PM on July 3, 2006

What, they couldn't execute on the pitch?
posted by fleacircus

They pushed their strikers forward but it was suicide.posted by surplus at 1:59 PM on July 3, 2006

it's hard to deny that, in the fundamentalist's pov, the obsessive soccer fan is worshiping a golden calf of sorts [emphasis mine]

Exactly. The fundamentalist POV is stupid and destructive at worst and misguided at best in the Western world and the same is true of the Muslim world. I see no reason to treat it any differently.posted by jonmc at 2:01 PM on July 3, 2006

I don't much care for the World Cup, nor for crazy islamicists, but I do enjoy it when naxosaxur talks about my balls.posted by jonson at 2:02 PM on July 3, 2006 [1 favorite]

People, people, can't we just agree to hate equally on sports fans and religious nuts?posted by signal at 2:16 PM on July 3, 2006

*hits signal on the head with souveneir Mets hat*posted by jonmc at 2:23 PM on July 3, 2006

Soccer v. religious zealotry
Does this prove Newton's law about action/reaction, or validate the prediction that the 21st Century would see an increase in splinter religious sects?

Re the Crusades: did the Muslims achieve control of the "Holy Land" bloodlessly and thus earn the right to criticize the Crusaders' method of trying to get it back?posted by Cranberry at 2:39 PM on July 3, 2006

oh man. When oh when can islam just go back to being a regular cult we hear about once in a while like all the other major ones?posted by Funmonkey1 at 2:40 PM on July 3, 2006

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the reasoning. The World Cup does indeed propagate the nationalistic myth. Meanwhile, that ynetnews.com site contains some hardcore propaganda. I often wonder if there's some sort of unspoken agreement between the radical Muslims and the anti-Islam sides: we'll keep saying all this crazy shit if you promise to publish it, repeat it, and spread the message far and wide.posted by nixerman at 2:40 PM on July 3, 2006

nixerman is right: there is some radical -- anarchistic -- thought strains in the essay. the WC promotes flags, anthems, and other militaristic imagery of "nation." to be against those portions of it does not a priori make you a fundamentalist religious nut.posted by yonation at 2:47 PM on July 3, 2006

Re the Crusades: did the Muslims achieve control of the "Holy Land" bloodlessly and thus earn the right to criticize the Crusaders' method of trying to get it back?
posted by Cranberry at 5:39 PM EST on July 3

Eh? Literally no political boundary has been drawn 'bloodlessly'. The reason sovereignty is respected is that it leads to a better status quo (peaceful dilineation by historically settled boundaries) than continuous back and forth. To wit, you can take about 5,000 years of human history and argue that at any point of that time group X dominated area A by force, therefore it is ok to take it away by force.

(In my firmly non-nationalistic mind these are all archaic sorts of notions though, if you have a Republic in place controlling a political body then the (purely moral) questions of legitimacy have nothing to do with the ethnic makeup of the people in power.)

Regarding the Crusades, I can't speak for why they're such a deep cultural touchstone for Muslims today (if indeed they are)—they probably takes the same place that Napolean, Hitler, invasions from the east take in Russian thought—but much of the Western criticism focuses around the hypocrisy of arguing that the pillaging conquests were done in the name of Christ.posted by Firas at 3:04 PM on July 3, 2006

"People will spend hundreds and thousands of pounds for this religion of theirs, traveling to other parts of the world in support of their team… showing affection, supporting and caring about… They will jump down the throats of those who so much as even dare to criticize their god rising to defend it at all costs," the Saved Sect website said.

So, are they talking about an increasing number of Muslims worldwide (the Hajj, the cartoon controversy), or about football fans? The Saved Sect website should be more specific.posted by clevershark at 3:18 PM on July 3, 2006

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the reasoning. The World Cup does indeed propagate the nationalistic myth.

There's a big difference for healthy regard for one's heritage and fire-breathing nationalism, I think any reasonable person would admit.posted by jonmc at 3:19 PM on July 3, 2006

I would imagine, as a devout Muslim, that the crusades were the last time Islam occurred for the west. If I were to continue that exercise in imagination I might resume thinking the same way. Being a technical agnostic penalty shoot outs are abhorrent, tho, perhaps necessary.. a little like cheese analogues.posted by econous at 3:20 PM on July 3, 2006

Clevershark: So, are they talking about an increasing number of Muslims worldwide (the Hajj, the cartoon controversy), or about football fans? The Saved Sect website should be more specific.

Own goal! Clevershark 1, Saved Sect 0posted by UbuRoivas at 4:30 PM on July 3, 2006

Oh great, today's two minutes of hate.posted by spazzm at 5:17 PM on July 3, 2006

Re the Crusades: did the Muslims achieve control of the "Holy Land" bloodlessly and thus earn the right to criticize the Crusaders' method of trying to get it back?

Well for one thing when the Muslims took Jerusalem it was bloodless. Whereas when the Franks finally took Jerusalem in 1099 "... [once] the Crusaders had breached the outer walls and entered the city almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem was killed over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning. Muslims, Jews, and even any remaining Christians were all massacred with indiscriminate violence."

True. But that's because they surrendered. But the question was about the entire holy land, not Jerusalem. Before the Christians came, and the Muslims were fighting the various polytheistic tribes, there was quite a bit of bloodshed. Even a massacre or two. The Christians during the middle ages were obviously more bloody, but it's not quite accurate to say that the early Muslims didn't have a great deal of blood on their hands.posted by unreason at 6:05 PM on July 3, 2006

Oh great, today's two minutes of hate.
posted by spazzm at 5:17 PM PST on July 3

Methinks maybe some folks are just pissed about all the football/futbol/soccer themed porn that's showed up in the last month or so.

(Seriously. There's a ton of it. And some of it is awesome.)posted by Cyrano at 6:38 PM on July 3, 2006

I think understanding this objection is understanding where the "islamists" are coming from to a large extent. It's a crazy place, but as mentioned above all fundies, of whatever stripe, are basically touched in the head.

I mean, nobody can really /disagree/ with the fundies on this matter, it's just a question of which world one wants to live in, the 21st century consumerist/capitalist/westernized one or the simpler and purer God-focused fundie one.

Some day all these fundies will wrap around and there will be an Orthodox Zensunni/Orange-Catholic flavor to treat all of them, and us secularists will be more marginalized than we already are.

We can laugh at the silly islamists, but how many of our US representatives are outright secularists?posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:51 PM on July 3, 2006

All I'm saying is, if you want a message to go through as intended you shouldn't be couching it in terms that make the message sound so appallingly ironic.posted by clevershark at 6:55 PM on July 3, 2006

An own goal occurs in football when a player kicks or otherwise causes the ball to go into his own side's goal, thus resulting in a goal being scored for the opposition. [...] The term has become a metaphor in countries where football is a popular sport for any action that backfires on a person.posted by UbuRoivas at 7:10 PM on July 3, 2006

It's an irrelevant argument, anyway. The World Cup is obviously a capitalist-bourgeois strategy to use nationalism to divide the international proletariat.posted by UbuRoivas at 8:48 PM on July 3, 2006

If they are soo worried about nationalism, just wait till they hear about feminism.posted by jeffburdges at 1:11 AM on July 4, 2006

More bloody than whom, and when? And where? Plenty of blame for all on the atrocity meter, of course, but Islam didn't go all defensive-warfare-only after they won the crusades.

But to return to the post- there is room for disagreement on Islam and the World Cup, if Der Speigel is to be believed, even among the fanatically devoutposted by IndigoJones at 10:52 AM on July 4, 2006

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